A Bit of Painting

This past month, I have been a busy girl. I had some extra time off of work during January, and I took advantage of my slower schedule by redoing some rooms. We started with the bathroom. We painted, and painted, and hung a new mirror, chose a new decor and got excited about it. When the room was finished (with the exception of finding shelves to hang on the wall), I set to work with a little creativity of my own. I used Modge Podge and old magazines to cover four canvas pallets. Then, parking myself on the bathroom floor so I could see the trees on the shower curtain, I painted. I'm not very good at painting "free-style", but I think I do okay if I have something to copy. I was very pleased with the results and cannot wait to find a proper shelf so I can hang the remaining two pictures on the wall. I cannot help but smile...

A Busy Bee

What a week! I think I am ready to stay home for the next month. I have been just. that. busy. We have been making pies, prepping for Thanksgiving, visiting with friends and family, shopping during the wee hours of the morning, throwing my friend a baby shower, eating too much and enjoying the people that God has brought into our lives. And now Adam is fighting a fierce cold. I am wishing for one more day in my long weekend that I could actually stay home and get to know my house again. But tomorrow I have an appointment in the city and some things to return, so I will be off and running again.

On a happy note, I bought a new shower curtain for the bathroom. It makes me smile every time I walk in there. I also bought paint and will begin painting hopefully this weekend. Doesn't my shower curtain make you smile too? The way I see it, I have free license to decorate my bathroom in a kid-friendly fashion, since I have a small kid myself. (Did you see my matching bath mat? Yes, that also makes me smile. I also will be attempting to paint some matching wall art.) More news about my busy week/month to come later. Nothing too exciting, so don't get your hopes up.

Growing Again

I'm eating ice cream at 9:30, just FYI. It's going to go right to my jiggly thighs...

I am so ready for another sunshiny day tomorrow. Today, it was like torture to have to go to work and leave my garden lying still under such a blue sky. If it is beautiful tomorrow, I am staying home all morning and doing garden things. I know it is only April 7th, but I am getting ready early this year. I am making raised beds in my garden and I have been working on them in my mind already for three months. I need to finish painting the boards so I can screw them together and fill them up with fresh soil. I have had such a hard time growing root vegetables for the past four years and I am ready to try something new. So I am making four 5'x5' raised beds to supplement my garden area. And I am also sooo ready to plant cool weather seeds, like peas and lettuce. The sooner, the better. I already feel like I am behind, even though I am starting way earlier than ever before. I have planted tomato seeds which are sprouting in my basement and I am anxious to get some pepper seeds sprouting as well... Again, I am hoping for a beautiful day tomorrow, because that is my excuse for skipping preschool as volunteer Mom. Even if it is not so great of a day, it would be so encouraging for me to be able to get some things accomplished at home. And we are having lunch company too. Maybe I should clean the bathroom as well?

A Good, Clean Birthday Present

To start off, I want you all to know that my very least favorite household chore is washing dishes. Not because it is hard or inconvenient, but because you are never really done washing dishes. Dirty dishes never go away. My sink is ALWAYS full of dishes waiting to be washed.

It was a very nice early birthday gift. Though I'm not sure it was intended to be a birthday gift. It all started when my hubby found out that my Aunt and Uncle were getting a new dishwasher and were getting rid of their old one. Their old one had a leaky seal. I have never hoped that I could fit a dishwasher in my teeny-tiny kitchen. To me, it was just impossible. But when Adam heard about the "leaky" dishwasher, his wheels started spinning. He is very handy and could fix that dishwasher. But in order to fit in a dishwasher, a cabinet needed to be taken out. That meant that a cabinet had to be emptied... That meant we needed somewhere else to put the emptied out stuff, whatever that stuff may be. So this is what happened Thursday when I was at work. We have a fine closet in our kitchen where we keep our garbage can and recyclables. Garbage can was moved to other side of kitchen. Adam hung very nice wire shelves in the closet to turn this space into a WONDERFUL pantry. (I'm not sure which pleases me more, the dishwasher or the pantry. Yes, I am... The dishwasher.) He emptied one and a half lower cabinets of their food contents and placed it all on the pantry shelves. The pots and pans moved out of their cabinet and into the now empty food cabinets. Pots and Pans cabinet was taken out. Dishwasher was put in. Wife now smiles broadly as she washes her dishes. Husband is happy. Counters look cleaner and sink has been empty almost ALL day! Woo-hoot! I am feeling much better about the state of affairs at our house. And I am ready to keep Adam around for quite a bit longer. :)

House-Sweet-Home

Seems that, this week, I have been getting around to it. For instance, I got around to hanging up some pictures in Josh's room. I got around to moving my piano. I got around to washing my window casings with bleach (they were oh, so moldy!). And I also got around to staining the railing and spindles on our basement stairway. Getting all this extra stuff done around the house just makes me feel, oh, so productive! I like it! Makes me wants to get more stuff done. Like last night, I scraped paint of the window panes of the pretty window I want to hang on my wall. This is the next project I am aiming to complete. Making my house more like a home is my goal. Well honestly, my real goal is to actually complete the projects I had set out to do a long time ago. Hello home make-over!

A Sense of Accomplishment

Today was a day for accomplishing. I accomplished 80% of my laundry. I accomplished writing a blog. (Actually make that two blogs!) I accomplished vacuuming a couch. I even accomplished grouting my garden chairs! Talk about taking forever to finish a task. Hey, at least I finished this project! And it didn't really take all that long. I mean, I started working on them in June. That was only three months ago. I am feeling good about my accomplishment. I'll have to wash the mosaic tiles once or twice more and then they will be beautiful and hopefully seat worthy. How about a nice pat on the back?

Mosaic Chairs: In the Works

I have spent almost all afternoon arranging tiles into a mosaic pattern on my garden chairs. I have been putting off this fun little project since December when I acquired these fine chairs at our church's silent auction. The chairs have been scuffed, primed, painted and now they are ready for their seats. But after all the work I put into arranging a pattern onto the seats, I find that I have the wrong adhesive, or rather, lack of adhesive for the job. I thought that I could use the grout that I bought back in February for both the adhesion and filling in spaces for the tiles. Wrong. I am very disappointed and feel like I wasted all this time. Now I have three hours before I have to leave for a daycare meeting and no way to go get what I need before that time. And my next free day isn't until next Tuesday. Yuck. Hopefully, no one (ahem-Josh) will jostle my chairs until the tile can be properly glued in place. At least I got to work on my sun burn, I mean tan. :)